is this happiness
by flowermasters
Summary: Kylo continues to be plagued by her own mind, even now. AU where Kylo is a girl.


A/N: Kylo wanted to be emo again, so here we are . . . but there's still far too much fluff to be had, don't worry.

Warnings for: cisgirl Kylo, established Kylo/Hux, pregnancy, discussions of past death.

This precedes "where do we begin" because lol what is chronological order. The title of this comes from "Is This Happiness" by Lana del Rey, mostly because I really love the line "you're a hard man to love and I'm a hard woman to keep track of" - not for this fic, but for girl!Kylo and Hux's general relationship.

* * *

For a moment, Kylo isn't sure why she's woken up. Hux is sleeping beside her, not quite touching her but still there. The house is quiet, the only ambient noise coming from the gentle wind outside. Hux had complained about that wind for a few weeks – he's never admitted it aloud, but Kylo knows he finds the sound unsettling, especially given how accustomed he is to the constant, reassuring hum of machinery. He'd stopped once he'd accepted the fact that, for now at least, they're here to stay.

Soon enough, however, Kylo gets her answer – in the form of something shifting within her, rather insistently. She presses a hand to her stomach almost instinctively, still half-asleep, and feels the child moving. Briefly, Kylo allows herself to smile.

The baby moves frequently, always in little flutters, but this is the strongest Kylo has ever felt it – surely it's strong enough for even Hux to feel. He's tried, pressing his hand to her lower belly at her insistence, but it only frustrates and disappoints him when she can feel the tiny movements and he can't. With that thought in mind, Kylo rolls over, ready to nudge him awake before the baby stills again.

The first thing she notices is that he isn't wearing the sweater he'd gone to bed in – Kylo has a very secret fondness for that sweater, which Hux had pilfered from a box in the single closet in the little house. The sleeves are too large and yet too short, and for some bizarre reason the sight of Hux's bony wrists protruding from the fabric is oddly charming. He's wearing something black, and it's too dark for Kylo to tell much else, but something about it is unpleasantly familiar.

"Hux," Kylo says, tugging on his sleeve. She recoils when her fingers come away damp, and when she looks at her hand – deathly pale in the dimness – her fingertips are stained.

Icy fear settles in Kylo's chest, shortening her breath, but she ignores it and reaches out to shake Hux more insistently. His head lolls towards her, and she can see the whites of his eyes – she can see something dark dripping out of his mouth, slicking his lips and running down his chin.

For a moment it's just like she is back on the _Finalizer_ , like she'd never left. Blood is starting to pool on the floor – no, it's staining the sheets – and Hux isn't breathing, his eyes are open but he sees nothing –

"No," Kylo says, frantic, sitting up so that she can press her hands against his battered chest, against the stiff fabric of his uniform. "Come back, damn you, come _back_."

Nothing happens, but Kylo keeps trying, shoving energy into his body until she can't anymore for fear of losing consciousness. She realizes suddenly that she is yelling. Screaming, actually, high-pitched and terrible –

"Kylo! Stop it!"

Suddenly, it's all gone. Hux is halfway on top of her, pinning her to the bed with hands on her shoulders. Kylo is clutching the fabric of that horribly ill-fitting sweater, her fingers digging against the warm solidity of Hux's chest. He's not in uniform, his hair is wild from sleep, and he isn't dead. Not anymore.

"I – you –," Kylo blurts. She is panting like a cornered beast, harsh and frightened.

"It was just a dream," Hux tells her, his brow furrowed. He starts to move, letting go of his hold on her, but she continues to grasp at him, refusing to let him move away from her.

"It wasn't a dream," Kylo says, and then she is sobbing, raw and uncontrollable. Once she would have been able to control this, but not with the amount of hormones she's producing at the moment. There's also a more terrible reason she's crying – the dream had begun so innocently, so _happily_ , and it had all been ruined in a second. Even her own subconscious is not content to let her have anything that she doesn't tear apart.

Hux seems stunned by this outburst, and Kylo honestly can't blame him for it, even as she presses her face against the fabric of his shirt and weeps, shaking so violently that Hux almost _has_ to hold her, to keep her from hurting one or both of them. "Kylo," he says. "Breathe."

He is thinking of the baby, concerned that Kylo's crazed behavior might harm him or her, and this notion alarms Kylo even more. It feels rather like a dam has been broken and she is being made to try and stop the water with her bare hands, no Force to help her and no escape from the onslaught.

"You were dead," Kylo manages finally, her breath hitching. "I rolled over and you were dead."

"I'm not dead," Hux says. One of his hands has found its way into her hair, untangling her loose braid. The gesture is intended to soothe her, but Hux takes a strange sort of comfort in it, too. He has dreams about dying; it really had hurt, being yanked back into a body that had nearly been blown apart, but the physical pain isn't what haunts him. "Thanks to you."

"I couldn't save you this time," Kylo says raggedly. She's stopped crying, her breathing gradually slowing. She lets go of Hux's sweater with one hand and presses it against her belly, feeling for the child with the Force. She's fine, Hux is fine, it had all been a dream. Not any worse than all the others she's endured, really.

"You didn't have to," Hux says firmly. "I'm still very much alive."

When Kylo tips her head back to look at him, he surprises her by quickly swiping away the tears on her cheeks. "Are you alright now?" Hux asks, shifting slightly. "I'm worried I might be crushing our child."

It always gives Kylo a strange thrill to hear him say things like that – _our child_ , _our baby_ – even though of course that's the most logical way to refer to her. Still, part of Kylo can't help but expect that at some point Hux will decide that this isn't something he wants, and Hux is not the sort of man to compromise himself for somebody else's sake. Kylo sometimes feels she's still waiting for the other shoe to drop, that's all.

"She's fine," Kylo says hoarsely, as Hux shifts off of her. He has the sense not to go far, at least. Kylo rolls somewhat awkwardly onto her side, afraid that if she takes her eyes off Hux for a moment her mind will play another miserable trick on her.

"Do you actually know that she's a she, or is that just wishful thinking?" Hux asks, with legitimate curiosity. He knows that Kylo has a sense of the child that goes beyond the norm, but the concept is still mostly foreign to him. He's also trying to distract her, which is rather nice of him.

"I don't have a preference for any gender," Kylo says. "But I feel her most strongly when I meditate, and she feels like a she."

"Well," Hux says wryly, "far be it from me to tell you any differently."

"Surely you're not hoping for a boy," Kylo says. She's never asked, and she's never heard him think about the baby's gender at length, but she supposes it's entirely possible that he might have a preference.

Even in the dark, Kylo _knows_ Hux is rolling his eyes. "Not particularly, no," Hux says. "I'm merely keeping an open mind."

"I suppose that's fair," Kylo says. Her voice almost sounds normal now, although there's still a gravelly note in it, even to her own ears. Her throat is sore. She must've screamed aloud, then, if it feels this raw. Out of a sense of morbid curiosity, she dips into Hux's mind, flicking through the last several minutes of his memories. She'd woken him up by elbowing him in the ribs with her panicked jerking, and when he'd attempted to shake her awake, she'd grabbed at him and wailed, still asleep. The sight nearly undoes her all over again, and Kylo withdraws from Hux's thoughts so abruptly that he actually feels it and flinches, unsettled.

"Sorry," Kylo whispers, somewhat ashamed. She should've been more careful. She's only ever bothered to be gentle about that with Hux.

"It's alright," Hux says, once he's recovered from the sensation. He slides an arm around her, pulling her as close as he can with the swell of her belly between them, and Kylo allows it, craves it. "I'm alright."

Hux kisses her then, firmly, as if trying to convince her that he's really there, that his heart still beats. If he'd kissed her like this any other night Kylo would already be spreading her legs, wanting him between them, but it's too much tonight. She is still half afraid she's going to fall apart in his arms and embarrass herself even further. She gentles the kiss, and after a moment he seems to understand what she wants.

Hux breaks the kiss but doesn't pull away, and for a moment they merely lie there, face-to-face in the dark. Kylo is quiet until she feels the baby shift again, which startles her into a quiet, "Oh." Perhaps that part of the dream had been real, then.

"What?" Hux asks.

Kylo grabs his forearm and guides his hand to the curve of her stomach. "Do you feel that?"

Hux waits a beat or two, then says, "I'm afraid not."

"You will," Kylo says, assuring herself almost as much as him. "Someday."

"Well, in the meantime," Hux says, sliding his hand away from her stomach and letting it rest gently on her hip. "I'd like to make a bet."

"A bet," Kylo repeats, frowning at him even though she knows he can't see her all that well.

"Yes," Hux says. "You seem fairly convinced that the baby is a girl, but in the interest of fairness, I'll say it's a boy."

"That's not how bets work, Hux. You don't know what to believe, one way or the other."

"If you really are confident that you're right, why argue with me?" Hux asks, somewhat smugly. It always takes Kylo a moment to accept that Hux is only teasing her; she's never taken kindly to mockery, even from him – perhaps especially from him – but he's not trying to hurt her. In his own strange way, he's trying to make her feel better. Such an effort is more than Kylo deserves, in her own opinion.

"What will I get when I win?" Kylo asks, playing along. "You don't have any money to your name."

"Neither do you," Hux points out archly. He's only half-joking when he adds, "I'll bake you a pie of those ridiculous fruits."

"Do you have any idea how to bake a pie?"

"Considering I'm a grown man, I think I'll manage."

Kylo rolls her eyes. "Alright. And in the event that you're right?"

"I suppose that's up to you," Hux murmurs thoughtfully, squeezing her hip lightly, and for a moment Kylo very much regrets not letting him ravish her – not that she'd admit to that, of course. "I'm sure you'll come up with something. You're quite clever on occasion."

"Tell me, General, how _did_ you become so gifted at flattery," Kylo grouses, giving him a mostly gentle kick in the shin. He hisses at her, but she knows she hasn't actually injured him – not this time, at least. Nowadays Kylo tries to only hurt Hux when he wants her to hurt him.

They'll have to move eventually – no matter how they arrange themselves before falling asleep, Kylo somehow always wakes up with Hux's knobby elbows and knees prodding her – but for now they don't, still lying close enough to one another that Hux's breath, gradually slowing as he nears sleep again, is tickling Kylo's cheek. It will take her a while longer to fall asleep again, or perhaps she won't go back to sleep at all, but Kylo is content for now.

On a whim, she moves Hux's hand again, shifting her position so that he can rest it on her stomach without having to bend his wrist too uncomfortably. Hux allows this, although he does mutter dryly, without even opening his eyes, "Comfortable yet?"

"Shut up," Kylo mumbles back, trying not to grin.

Hux is very nearly asleep when Kylo feels it – a pronounced kick, right under his palm. For a moment she's worried that he'd missed it, but his answering smile, half drowsy and half delighted, tells her that, at last, he had felt it too.


End file.
